Unfinished business piles up in General Assembly | Politics
There's lots of unfinished business entering the final stretch of the Maryland General Assembly, and judging from the list, you'd think it was the beginning of the session, not the end.
A sign of the legislative times, negotiations continue in efforts to resolve advancing the governor's top session priority, his $10.10 an hour minimum wage bill. It's bottled up in a Senate committee. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mac Middleton tied it to his bill to also increase the pay of workers who take care of the developmentally disabled.
The House of Cards production figures prominently in two major bills that aren't a wrap just yet. The House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday heard Senate legislation increasing tax credits for films shot in Maryland from $11 million to $18.5 million.
The production upped the ante announcing they'll fold if the state doesn't come up with more dough. Delegates called that hand by inserting language in the budget bill allowing the state to use its eminent domain powers to take control of the film activity for those getting $10 million or more in tax credits.
The $39 billion spending plan also has language threatening to withhold money to Maryland colleges and universities that participate in an academic boycott of Israel. The boycott was organized last year to protest Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The budget bill is in a conference committee and those two threats are likely to be taken out.
The Senate is sending the House legislation that allows for a computer statistical analysis to determine the bail status of those arrested rather than a court commissioner. The leading opponent of the bill has a powerful ally in the House, a committee chairman. They want to amend the state constitution to overturn a court ruling that prompted the bill. The state's high court ruled that the indigent are entitled to a lawyer at the commissioner level.
Medical marijuana is in legislative limbo. There's no decision yet to accept changes made in the Senate or negotiate differences in a conference committee.
Something that will not cost the state anything to do, but potentially generate millions in return, is stuck like an anchor on the Chesapeake Bay floor. Bills designating the soft shell crab as the official state sandwich haven't even gotten a committee vote. The state has nearly two dozen state symbols, and supporters ask why not a sandwich?